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When

was published in the United States in 2020, a journalist called the North American publisher to make sure that the band that stars and gives the novel its title had never existed: it seemed unlikely to him that this group formed in 1967 at the height of Swinging London,

, was a strictly narrative artifact, the fruit of its author's imagination, and that the band's three albums, meticulously described in the text, were not available on Discogs or Spotify.

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Two years later, typing “

” in the search window of the popular music service brings up several

that compile the many real themes that resonate in the book, recently published in Spain by Random House Literature with

.

And its author, David Mitchell, happily remembers the anecdote of that conscientious journalist, who does nothing but endorse the success of his literary operation.

The one of mixing his fictional creatures -the singer Elf, the bassist Dean, the guitarist Jasper, the drummer Griff and Levon Frankland, the dapper manager of the band- with flesh and blood characters such as

.

All this, in the recognizable geography of London's Soho of the time, with iconic places such as the Marquee club, 2i's Coffee Bar, Les Cousins, the UFO Club, the Denmark street record companies, the Gioconda café or the Scotch of Saint James. .

"The idea is not original.

in

.

If I see far away, it's because I walk on the shoulders of giants », jokes Mitchell by video call from his house near Cork, in Ireland.

Indeed, it is a literary game with illustrious antecedents;

we cannot avoid citing Galdós.

But the challenge is to get it to work.

"A novelist is like an illusionist who creates the impression that fiction is real, and for this he needs little tricks and illusions.

.

In the case of incorporating historical characters into the narration, if you abuse it you will fall into the fictionalized biography, and if you fall short it will be like playing mere bird watching.

You have to find a rule and, in my case, it is quite simple: the appearance of the historical character must change the scene, but not the narrative direction of the story.

David Mitchell.ÁLEX ZAPICO

After several forays into fantasy, with

between the past and the future such as

, adapted to the cinema by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski sisters 10 years ago, Mitchell chose a very specific time and place to write what he considers his most relevant novel to date.

"I think the best music of the late '60s is so unbelievably good because it was new as well as good.

For us it is already old, but

.

There was no such thing as an album like

The Beatles'

They had never heard songs like

by the Rolling,

by Pink Floyd, or

by The Kinks.

The album as a sequence of songs,

, was an art form that was in its infancy.

In a very few years, between 1966 and 1968, there was an extraordinary evolutionary leap in pop and rock, an event that happens very rarely.

Revolution, in art and in politics, was in the air, and revolution is always a friend of narrative.

So, apart from the fact that I love music, it made perfect sense to set my novel at that time.

The two poles of British society

at the time are represented in the

band

: Dean and Griff embody, respectively, the working class of the south and north of England;

Elf and Jasper, the wide but comfortable spectrum between the middle class and a certain bohemian bourgeoisie.

"I had an aspiration that

It was a bit of a state-of-the-nation novel at the time.

Its main theme is music, but there is a sub-theme that is social change, ”acknowledges Mitchell.

«Every 40 years society speeds up and takes a leap.

Perhaps today, with Trump, Brexit and Putin's genocide in Ukraine, we are living in a similar time, in which the deck of society is shuffled and dealt again, but at the moment you cannot see it clearly.

I have wanted to reflect that in

.

, and with it a first awareness of the potential toxicity of the privilege of the heteronormative white man.

Much of the foundation of liberal democracy was laid then."

After his experience as a screenwriter on

- "I've always admired screenwriters, but now even more" -, Mitchell combines the writing of his new novel with

.

“It is a world that draws you in like a black hole.

But I always say yes to the side projects that come up for me, because I think I can learn a lot from them.

Surely I do it in part to combat that great fear of the middle-aged writer that is repetition.

That is why he has also written opera librettos, that total work of art, as Wagner would say.

"And if he were alive now," he replies with a smile, "he would probably say that the total work of art is the video game.

With its narrative, the music, the use of visuals, the character development, the drama...

I'm kind of hooked on

.

If she doesn't know him, she recommends him ».

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